Portland School holds the safety, health, well-being and welfare of its students as paramount.
We are committed to safeguarding and work together to ensure that our students thrive in a safe and supportive environment, whatever their age, ethnicity, religion, disability, sexual identity or gender. All staff in the School are trained in Safeguarding and Child Protection issues and are kept up to date with changes in legislation and practice. We take any allegation and suspicion of abuse seriously and will respond to them promptly.
All staff recruited to the School undergo a rigorous safer recruitment process in line with the Statutory Guidance outlined by Keeping Children Safe in Education 2022 (KCSIE) and as a consequence all of the necessary background checks for example DBS are completed before staff begin employment.
We have adopted the definition of Safeguarding used in the Children Act 1989 and the Children Act 2004 and the DfE guidance document: Working Together to Safeguard Children, which focuses on safeguarding and promoting children, young people and vulnerable adult’s welfare.
Any safeguarding concerns should be made aware to our Designated Safeguarding Lead, Miss R Shaw or Deputy Designated Safeguarding Leads, Mr G Anderson, Miss H Burgess, Mrs L Topping or Mrs C Finney-Inskip.
You can also make a referral yourself if you are concerned about the safety of a child.
If you believe the child to be at risk of immediate harm, this must be reported to the police on 999 or 101.
If you do not believe the child to be at risk of immediate harm, please contact SCAS on 0300 111 8007 (Option 1).
Opening hours are Monday to Thursday 8:30am - 5:00pm and Friday 8:30am - 4:30pm.
Outside of the hours above, please contact the emergency duty team on 0345 604 2886.
Non-urgent referrals can also be made online by following this link: Report a concern online - Staffordshire County Council
Safeguarding Links
Staffordshire Safeguarding Children Board (SSCB)
An inter-agency forum for agreeing how the different services and professional groups should co-operate to safeguard children.
Prevent duty guidance.
Prevent duty guidance for specified authorities in England and Wales.
NSPCC
Our services help children who’ve been abused, protect children at risk and find the best ways to prevent child abuse from ever happening.
Operation Encompass
Our aim is to ensure that schools have timely information about all police-attended incidents of domestic abuse, no matter where in the world the child lives..
Keeping children safe in education
Statutory guidance for schools and colleges on safeguarding children and safer recruitment.
Safeguarding Children Partnership | Stoke-on-Trent
Our vision is that partners in Stoke-on-Trent will work effectively and collaboratively towards shared priorities to improve safeguarding outcomes for all children.
Think U Know
The National Crime Agency's CEOP Education team aim to help protect children and young people from online child sexual abuse. We do this through our education programme, providing training, resources and information to professionals working with children, young people and their families.
Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP)
CEOP is a law enforcement agency and is here to help keep children and young people safe from sexual abuse and grooming online.